>>13701419https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297500/The twenty-first century rose in a ray of hope. The belief was commonly held that an age of worldwide prosperity was beginning with the new millennium. Only a few years ago, people spoke of peace. Today, the general trend in many populations across the globe is fear and anxiety about self and neighbor. Socio-political events have cast a shadow of uneasiness about one's own security and that of significant others at a personal as well as a societal level. (Case in point is Greg, a businessman from Southern California, who happened to be on a business trip in New York city scheduled for September 10–12, 2001. Following the 9/11 attack, which he barely escaped, he immediately attempted to contact his family in the Southland and to leave New York city. He was on the first plane out: but the plane never took off, instead it was boarded by the New York city SWAT team who, at gun point, arrested a passenger seated four seats in front of Greg's. Greg then drove at night to Philadelphia, where he was eventually able to board a plane and return to his anxious family. To this day, Greg does not fly as often as before, is reticent to fly to the east coast and will not return to do business in New York city. His Type II diabetes has considerably worsened.)
Traumatic events are profoundly stressful. The stress that results from traumatic events precipitates a spectrum of psycho-emotional and physiopathological outcomes. In its gravest form, this response is diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder consequential to the experience of traumatic events.
